Was Churchill justified in using the strategic bom • Russia had been pushing for a seconf front in Europe which would involve an amphibious landing. Churchill had had several disasters with amphibious landings (Gallipoli/ Narvick) and knowing it was an area of weakness leant towards the bombing campaign • Churchill understood that an amphbious landing could potentially result in the loss of thousands of British lives (lack of resources and weak army) and using the bombing campaign instead would "deal" with Germany quickly without the loss of as many British lives. • In the context of the time, Btisain has been bombed by Germany and many had suffered. Many people in the general public probably fely Germany deserved to be bombed after the destruction of towns like Conventry and areas of London. • Was a way of loweing morale and hindering German progression in the war, targeting their resources and factories.
The practice of travelling to the countryside to sleep in the fields, when bombing was expected, had begun in the First World War. By 1941 an estimated third of the population were leaving the city at night. In August 1941, the King and Queen visited Hull to see the damage. Half of the city centre was destroyed. Three million square feet of factory space, several oil and flour mills, the Riverside Quay and 27 churches, 14 schools or hospitals, 42 pubs and 8 cinemas were ruined.
After Britain declared war on Germany, France joined in with Britain as they felt threatened that Germany was going to take over them. At the beginning of the war the Axis(Germany, Italy, and Japan and other minor powers) were winning over the Allies(US, Russia, Great Britain, France, China, Canada and other minor countries), this soon changed at the battle of “ El Alamein” and the attack on “Pearl Harbour”, where arguably the allies started to win the war. In the battle of “El Alamein” the British and its allies started to win, where the German advance through North Africa was stopped by the British army. At El Alamein the German North African army was trapped between the British forces and an American army. 275,000 German soldiers surrendered and the German campaign in North Africa was ended, although General Rommel managed to escape back to Germany.
It soon became apparent that it would be just as hard a task to take the beaches, as it is to get to the beach. On a particularly hard section some landing craft overturned, each carrying up to 30 troops and each having 40 pounds of supplies. Needless to say many drowned because of being so heavy. (Morison 55) On Omaha Beach the Germans had beefed up their defenses prior to the landing because Hitler still believed that there could be an invasion from that point even thought the information he had gotten said otherwise. (Morison 34) The Germans had a total of 3,700 obstacles on Omaha beach, more than any other beach during the invasion.
In May 1940 Germany was dominating the French in France and so the Allies had to withdraw to the beaches Dunkirk. There was then a huge operation to evacuate the soldiers by the navy and small boats sailed there by volunteers to rescue roughly 350,000 French and English troops. This left only Britain to be defeated for Germany to have defeated and captured the whole of Western Europe. Hitler’s next operation was to invade Britain. Hitler knew that the German Navy was too small to control the English Channel but he believed that with the Luftwaffe he could successfully defeat Britain.
The Allies forced Japan to retreat and go on the offensive. When the Allies captured Guadalcanal in 1943, the Japanese went into full retreat back to Japan. While victories in the Pacific were occurring, the Soviets had defeated the Germans at Stalingrad, and Allied troops were removing the enemy from North Africa. The Allies were winning, but the war was not over. Every Little Bit Helps During the war, Germany occupied many European nations.
They were evacuated on naval vessels, civilian boats and little ships. There were over a thousand civilian casualties and an estimated five hundred and fifty four were killed and a further seven hundred and ninety one lost their lives in the course of their duties before coming to an end. When Hitler came to power he was determined to make Germany a great power again and to dominate Europe. He had set out his ideas in a book called Mein Kampf (My Struggle) that he had written in prison in 1924. His main aims were to: destroy the Treaty of Versailles imposed on Germany after her defeat in World War One.
The Battle of Britain took place when the Luftwaffe attempted to win air superiority over southern England from the Royal Air Force as an essential prerequisite for the invasion of this country by German naval and land forces. For the British, it ran from 10 July - 31 October 1940. For the Germans it began on 13 August, Adlertag or "Eagle Day". The key to success for the Luftwaffe was the destruction of the RAF's fighter force. Conversely, for Fighter Command it was to hamper bombing and inflict losses, preferably before the target was reached.
The Battle of Stalingrad was one of the most crucial and gruesome battles fought in Europe during World War Two. There were numerous reasons that Hitler saw fit for invading Stalingrad on September 1st, 1942 including his obsession for conquering the city named after his biggest rival, Josef Stalin. As the battle waged on both sides suffered immense casualties as they tried to gain a strangle hold on the important industrial city of Stalingrad. After 199 days of fighting, the Battle of Stalingrad concluded, beginning what many historians view as the turning point in Hitler’s European conquest as the Germans began their retreat from Russia. By 1942, Hitler had assumed control of the German Army (an army that no longer had the strength and resources seen in Operation Barbarossa) and he listened to his generals much less than he had in previous years.
During the next three years East Germany steadily declined and a steady flow of refugees were fleeing to West Germany (Danforth). The Cold War came next. A nuclear face off between two opposing world superpowers, USA and USSR began. Berlin being itself divided, was the front line in a war that wasn’t a war. In 1948, Communist East Germany, frustrated with the exodus of hundreds of thousands of young skilled laborers, closed all border crossings in and out of East Germany, trapping over a million West Berlin citizens with little food, money, or fuel over a hundred miles inside East Germany.